If You Lose Control, It’s the KOD

So I am in a meeting to talk about the stack of drafts I had just passed around the table in a medium-sized binder clip. There were three classes of drafts in the stack:

• Comment on these,
• Just look at these, and
• I wanted to let you know that I know we need to publish stuff on these topics  but the drafts you have here are not very close yet.

Before I could set the stage and explain on which of the drafts I wanted feedback, the project manager announced “Please get your feedback back to Dan by Friday.”

While I appreciated the support I knew this was the KOD (kiss of death). Small aside, my wife and I used this term (KOD) when my daughter would announce at dinner that she “loved these <add the name of whatever we just ate>.” We knew she would never eat that specific food ever again. So after a “loved these” announcement my wife would turn to me and say “KOD.” This was the same situation.

Even after I said that I was just looking for comments on the first group of drafts, all the team heard was “READ ALL OF THIS STUFF AND GET COMMENTS BACK RIGHT NOW!”

Needless to say, I received no comments and I have to go to everyone and specifically ask for feedback.

The takeaway. Be cautious about what you ask for. Be very clear on what you want you want your reviewers to do. And, get project managers to give you enough space to run your own meetings or else it’s KOD time for you, too.